


the nights keep getting longer

by abvj



Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen, Set pre-series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-12 23:50:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abvj/pseuds/abvj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Men like Eliot aren't made. They're born.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the nights keep getting longer

**Author's Note:**

> Set pre-series. General series spoilers. If you know who Eliot is, what he does, and who Moreau is, you're good.

6.

 

The recruiters corner him after school, talk him into sitting for a test, and speak in platitudes about commitments and God and country and patriotism. The men stand there, tall and hardened, and wax poetic about how the act of serving will make him a man. 

Eliot grins cockily. He is shorter than you would expect, but strong, _smart_. He doesn’t bother to tell them that he already is a man. That he was a man earlier that morning when he took the beating meant for his sister, and last week when he suffered through the hits meant for his mother. He doesn’t tell them that he was made a man by circumstance, by the hands of his father, or that when most little boys were trading baseball cards and dreaming of playing for the pros, he was dreaming of a way to take him and his sister far, far away from this place.

The recruiters tell him he’s special, that his country _needs_ him. 

Eliot enlists the day he turns eighteen, a couple of his buddies in tow, and the week before they all ship out, they head up north to the lake. The four of them spend a long summer day drinking, trading punches, and talking shit about how they’re all going to be something someday soon, how they’re going to help change the world.

On the way back, Eliot drives. Somebody from behind passes him a bottle of whiskey. Eliot shakes his head as the guy says, “I’m going to miss the food the most. Burgers. French fries.” 

“Nah,” another one cuts in. “Chicks. I’m going to miss all that fine, pure-bred, mid-western ass.” 

“They’ve got chicks everywhere, man,” 

They all laugh and somebody kicks the back of Eliot’s seat. “What about you, Spencer? What are you going to miss?” 

Fingers tighten around the wheel and he stares straight ahead, into the dark of the night. He thinks about his sister for a beat, about Aimee and her long legs and perfect mouth and how she cried when he told her he was leaving, how she promised him she’d wait. 

“Not a goddamn thing,” he lies. 

His throat burns as he says it, but Eliot shoves it down, buries it. It’s easier for him this way. 

 

 

 

5.

 

Here’s what they don’t tell you: those first months are the hardest, they are meant to wear you down into nothing, they are meant to beat you until you bend to the will of your superiors because your superiors know better, know more than you ever will. Those first few weeks are fully intended to break you just so you can figure out a way to put yourself back together in a split-second while bullets are raining down on you and your have somebody else’s life in your hands. 

When they tell you serving will make you a man, what they really mean is it will make you a _better_ man because if you aren’t one going in, you are pretty much fucked. 

Others keep their keepsakes buried in the bottom of their trunks as motivation to keep going, to endure. They pull them out, draw their fingers lazily over the edges of photos and the scrawl of handwritten letters. His buddy Chuck does it most nights. Chuck likes to talk to Eliot about his girl back home, about how he is going to marry her and settle down and get the house with picket fence, the two kids and a dog. The All-American Dream, he calls it with a crooked grin. 

Eliot doesn’t need keepsakes, doesn’t want them around because material things provide proof – proof that he has a weakness, that he has people and things he cares about, people and things that can be used against him. Eliot doesn’t carry around mementos; instead, he keeps the things he loves, the things he enlisted to protect, filed away in his head, labeled _family_ and _Aimee_ and _home_. 

Most nights, Chuck talks about how he’s going to name his dog Dewey, short for Dewars, or Johnny, short for Johnny Walker, and Eliot laughs in the appropriate places as he closes his eyes, centers himself, and his hands work tirelessly to take apart his gun just so he can put it back together. 

“Thought you didn’t like guns,” Chuck says. 

Eliot keeps his eyes closed, as he assembles barrel, guide rod, and spring into the slide. “Doesn’t mean I don’t like to be prepared.” 

 

 

 

4.

 

The first time he sees war it’s in the desert. He’s nineteen and carries his gun like it’s a badge of honor even though he has trained himself to use his body as a weapon first and his service weapon second. 

He sees the grenade before anyone else, spots the object out of the corner of his eye when he’s going hand to hand with an insurgent who, without the gun he’s long since been disarmed of, isn’t even a match for Eliot. Acting first and thinking second, Eliot throws the insurgent in the direction of the grenade, which allows his body to absorb the majority of the blast as Eliot ducks for cover and yells for his unit to do the same. 

Dozens of lives are spared at the cost of one. Eliot’s not sure if he should be okay with that math, but oddly enough, he is. 

A few months later, he’s called to his CO’s office. A man dressed in a three-piece suit that has no business in a country with temperatures that reach 115 degrees by breakfast waits for him. Eliot squares his shoulders, stands tall and proud, but is respectful, follows his trained instinct and doesn’t look him directly in the eye.

“We have an opportunity for you, son,” the man says. When he dares to look, there is a glint in the man’s eyes that Eliot instinctively distrusts. 

He is supposed to get leave in six months. He doesn’t make it home for another eighteen. Aimee stops keeping her promise sometime after. 

 

 

 

3.

 

The act of taking another life isn’t as hard as he thought it would be. In all actuality, it is just a carefully placed distraction, the element of surprise, and then strong, skillful hands twisting an opponent’s neck until the bones crack under his fingers. 

It is the aftermath that is problematic – the weight of the body as it drops to the floor, the lifeless eyes as they stare up at him, the smell of their last meal on their breath. 

The first time is some small country in Eastern Europe, under the guise of liberation. The man is a politician that resisted the cause. Eliot has his orders. The man’s breath smells like marinara and whiskey as he begs for his life, as he weeps for the family he would be leaving behind. _I have a son_ , he sobs in broken English. Eliot grabs him from behind so he doesn’t have to see his face, tells him that it’ll be easier if he doesn’t struggle, and closes his eyes as the sound of bones snapping out of place pops in his ears. 

After, his handler slaps him on the back. “You did good, Spencer,” he tells him, the pride slipping through the cracks. 

Eliot can still smell marinara, the heady scent of whiskey, and the bile rises, overtakes him. He’d probably puke it up if he wasn’t too busy trying not to choke on it. 

 

 

 

2.

 

He’s captured in Afghanistan, which isn’t all that surprising. Men like Eliot are trained for such situations, taught how to survive. Here’s the kicker: Eliot isn’t even there on an assignment; Kabul is just another rendezvous point, a stopover on his way to points north. 

The United States government does not negotiate with terrorists. The United States definitely does not negotiate with terrorists for a man they do not acknowledge is under their contract. Eliot knows this, so he spends a hard winter getting acquainted with the darkness, the sounds of vermin scurrying across the floor, the smell of his own sweat, blood, piss, and shit. He spends nights on the concrete floor, his blood drying and sticking to his skin. Eliot count days and hours with his fingers, toes, with tally marks carved into the walls with a piece of fractured concrete he’d created when he slammed his fist into the floor until his knuckles bled furiously that first week. 

He plans, plots, prepares for action. 

Not once does he talk. Not once does he scream. Not once does he beg. He endures. He survives. With sheer will, determination, and his own two hands guiding the way, he makes it out alive – just like he was taught. 

Eliot would die for his country, for his friends, for his brothers in arms, but he would not, under any circumstance, die for nothing. 

(He watches each and every one of their faces as they breathe their last breath. The satisfaction is a curious thing as it coils deep in the pit of his belly.)

 

 

 

1.

 

Moreau is a magnificent bastard – smooth, arrogant, but also brilliant, a sheer visionary. Eliot can respect the intelligence even if he doesn’t respect the man.

“We could do great things,” Moreau says. “Beautiful, extraordinary things.” He’s laughing without making a sound, Eliot can see it in his eyes, the way his mouth curls. Eliot’s face remains passive, vacant as he flattens his palms against his jeans to keep them from curling into fists. 

Eliot had been stateside for less than two weeks when he was contracted for a retrieval job that got messy. Eliot got out clean with the package. Others did not. He put two and two together, always smarter than most everyone assumed, realized it was an audition and waited for Moreau to come to him. The thing about Eliot that nobody really understands is that he is always _at least_ two steps ahead at all times, the perfect mixture of brute force and quiet brilliance.

Moreau leans back in his chair, uses his body as a weapon, but in a far different way than Eliot. Moreau uses his body to exude power, to extort fear. Now, as he regards Eliot carefully, his shoulders relaxed, his mouth upturned, Eliot understands that Moreau knows the sort of person Eliot is, what he is capable of. In all the circles that matter, it is only Eliot’s reputation precedes him. Most of his adult life has been spent serving the United States government, his country, and all he has to show for it is burned aliases and scorched earth, black ops, a list of countries in a file that has more black-outs than words, and skeletons buried in deep, deep graves. 

Eliot is the best at what he does, and understands what Moreau wants and expects from him. Eliot also knows exactly how to use that to his advantage. 

“One condition,” Eliot says, voice even, cold. Moreau raises an eyebrow. “When I am ready to walk away, I walk away. No questions.” 

What Eliot means is this: you get my expertise, my loyalty, but never my trust. 

Because Moreau is a smart man, he understands that it doesn’t matter. It is Eliot’s loyalty that is unyielding, almost unbreakable and worth so, so much more than his trust. 

 

 

 

0.

 

Men like Eliot aren’t made. They are born. 

The fault lines that shape their foundation are present at birth, and it is circumstance and environment and the bloodiness of wars fought on so many different fronts that bring them to light, that mold men like Eliot into indestructible forces. The violence serves as a catalyst, and Eliot learned too early on how to take the violence he was bathed in as a child and swallow it down, make it his own. Eliot has long since made an art out of bending it until it fueled him into becoming better, greater that he ever could have imagined possible. 

Violence is Eliot’s weapon of choice. He knows how to work with violence, how to control it, how to react to it because he has had a lifetime of practice. 

Men like Eliot govern their lives with carefully crafted morals and ethics. They need the mission, a sense of duty to make them feel whole, to give them a sense of purpose because without a singular goal, without an endpoint in sight, the line between patriot and assassin, hero and villain blurs, eventually ceasing to exist altogether.

Men like Eliot can lead – and do lead when it is necessary, when it is expected of them – but _choose_ to follow. They do this because the things that are asked of them, the sort of choices that involve who lives and who dies regardless of whether they are deserving, are the sorts of decisions that Eliot could make, but simply doesn’t _want_ to. 

It’s a fine line, the one men like Eliot walk, but it makes all the difference.


End file.
